Discussion: Judge Strikes Down Indiana Ban on Gay Marriage

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Discussion for article #224364

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When the first 3 or 4 states allowed marriage equality, I popped open a bottle of champers each time. If I opened a bottle each time now, I would be snockered 98% of the time. I’ll just put a bottle in to chill for when the 50th state is accomplished.

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Gays are celebrating like it’s a state by state pub crawl.

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And we owe it all to Antonin Scalia. Ironic, ain’t it.

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The statement in this article, “Young’s ruling was mixed but generally sided with the couples . . .” is horribly misleading, if not flat-out wrong. The court found that marriage equality is a fundamental right under the Constitution and permanently banned the enforcement of any Indiana state law that would prohibit, penalize or fail to acknowledge same-sex marriage. That’s a 100% victory, not just “generally sided with the couples.”

The only “mixed” part of the ruling was that the Court ruled that Indiana’s governor was dismissed as a defendant, but he was dismissed specifically because he had no role or authority to enforce or prohibit any laws or actions involving marriage. (The court also dismissed all the claims involving temporary injunctions because they are moot, in light of the court’s imposition of permanent injunctions.)

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Although I support the emotion of your sentiment, I have to point out, to those who might actually “give a damn” or not understand the nuances:

  1. There really is nothing ironic about this and Scalia. Scalia went on a hate-filled tirade in the Lawrence case, and tried to bully the other Justices with the threat that prohibiting legislation based on subjective morality (the belief that homosexuality is immoral) would make it legally impossible to prohibit same sex marriages. While I deplore his motivation to issue that threat, everyone that matters in this debate agrees with his logic. Most importantly, the Justices in the majority on that case, and the Windsor case, where he repeated his arguments, clearly saw that the only harm being done was the unconstitutional discrimination of homosexuals. Scalia didn’t say anything the rest didn’t already know, and didn’t implicitly support.

  2. If there is any ironic humor in this, it is on Gingrich. Congress rushed through DOMA, which was not only facially unconstitutional, but utterly stupid and beyond the scope of federal authority. But because it was purely theoretical at the time it passed, and could not affect anyone for another 7 years, after the first same sex marriage was allowed, it could not be tested in the courts. In the meantime the majority of states passed their own laws modeling DOMA, creating the house of cards that are tumbling down as we rejoice. But for DOMA, marriage equality would have had a much slower, more convoluted path to legitimacy.

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While I appreciate your attempt to clarify the nuances, I suggest that you look up “ironic” in a dictionary. Never mind, I’ll save you the trouble:

i·ron·ic [ahy-ron-ik]
adjective

  1. using words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning; containing or exemplifying irony: an ironic novel; an ironic remark.
  2. of, pertaining to, or tending to use irony or mockery; ironical.
  3. coincidental; unexpected: It was ironic that I was seated next to my ex-husband at the dinner.

While ironic remarks or situations are often humorous, if you read the definition carefully you will see that humor is not an element of the definition of “ironic”. “Ironic” means funny ➙ “peculiar”, not funny ➙ “ha-ha”. So when you say, “There really is nothing ironic about this and Scalia”, you are saying that Scalia intended for his argument to be used as a template for the overturning of gay marriage bans as many judges have done when finding for the plaintiffs in these cases. I don’t think so.

Another nuance: One can hardly say that DOMA did not affect anyone for seven years. While same-sex marriages may not have been performed in any US jurisdiction before 2004, a number of foreign countries permitted same-sex marriages before this, and US citizens so married abroad were denied rights and benefits by the federal government:

“Under DOMA, persons in same-sex marriages were not considered married for immigration purposes. U.S. citizens and permanent residents in same-sex marriages could not petition for their spouses, nor could they be accompanied by their spouses into the U.S. on the basis of a family or employment-based visa. A non-citizen in such a marriage could not use it as the basis for obtaining a waiver or relief from removal from the U.S.”